With all the excitement I’ve had receiving entries for my Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge, I had forgotten that I wanted to post about the peanut butter cupcakes with white chocolate frosting that I had made last week! I got the inspiration for these cupcakes when I made these peanut butter cookies and added white chocolate chunks to the cookie dough. It was a really nice combination. I just had to make a cupcake out of it.
My family and I have relatively recently moved back to Sydney, Australia from Indiana, USA. There were many reasons why we were looking forward to moving back. And one giant reason why we were not looking forward to moving back – 3 flights with 3 young children, including a 3-month-old baby! We went alright though, as it turned out that the baby was actually the easiest to travel with. He spent most of his time in a Peanut Shell sling, either nursing or asleep. The real trouble was with our 4-year-old and 2-year-old, who were so full of energy, yet were so incredibly tired. Why do kids do that – the more tired they are, the more wild they become? After running around the seats at the gate in San Francisco’s airport during our 5-hour layover, they finally fell asleep in those seats – my daughter’s face was buried under her arms, and my son fell asleep bent over the seat, with his feet still standing on the floor. It was a nightmare, the whole entire trip, but it still went better than what I thought it would have.
We just had to keep looking on the bright side – our plane finally touching down in Sydney.
We’ve been back for about 7 months now and it feels like we never even spent those 3 long years in the US. Even though we did spend all that time there, we didn’t make many friends and we didn’t know our neighbors very well; we didn’t even get out much (but there’s so much more to do here than where we were in Indiana). Here, we are lucky to have some great neighbors – one of them even grows their own fruit and vegetables, organically, and are kind enough to share their bounty with us, such as butternut pumpkins, persimmons, plums, lemons and limes. I’ve made pumpkin bread, persimmon bread, a lime tart, lemon melting moments and lemon butter with some of these fruits. It’s great to bake with fresh food that I know is free from chemicals.
One of my most favorite comfort foods is French toast. I just love it, especially on a cold, winter morning, or in some cases, a cold, winter evening for dinner! I don’t know who invented French toast – who would have thought to coat a slice of bread in raw eggs, milk and cinnamon and then fry it? – but I praise them!
My own basic recipe for French toast is below. I usually pour some maple syrup over it, sometimes with bananas, if I have any. Sometimes I even caramelize the bananas. But last week, I had a heap of leftover salted butter caramel sauce from the popcorn ice cream I had made and wanted to do something special with, something that I could share with others.
An idea suddenly popped into my head one night. I was craving French toast (which was not at all unusual for me!) and was thinking of ways I could jazz it up. How about caramel French toast? No… it would need a fruit to go with it… how about apples? Yes, how about caramel apple French toast!
And you know what? It was one of the best dishes I have ever eaten. It was so good, that I found myself making it again the very next day.
We celebrated my son’s 3rd birthday over the weekend. It wasn’t anything special, as I’m not that great of a party planner! We just invited nana over, had a picnic and cake outside and opened presents. I didn’t even make the cake from scratch (I can hear your sounds of disgust at that statement!). I used Green’s Really Good Chocolate Cake mix and got a lovely, dense, chocolatey cake that I decorated with crushed Maltesers (the Australian version of Whoppers in the US).
I don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but when I do, I’ll wear necklaces, like this really pretty mom-necklace my mom gave me for my birthday. So when Wendie from Miss Kitty Creations contacted me about reviewing her handmade cupcake charms, I was immediately interested because I also love displaying my cupcake-love in necklace form!
Wendie’s cupcake charms are scented with realistic scents that almost remind me of my old Strawberry Shortcake dolls – I just love that smell! The charms are about 3/4-inch tall and if you have collectible dolls, these cupcakes are a perfect size for them (like mine pictured below).
What I really like about them is not only how yummy they smell, but how realistic they look. I chose a red velvet cupcake that smells like chocolate covered cherries…
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